


Of Present Sorrows and Two-Sided Coins

by voodoochild



Category: Carnivale, The Sandman
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-22
Updated: 2010-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Iris Crowe had to do was leave well enough alone, but the Endless have other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Present Sorrows and Two-Sided Coins

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Yuletide 2006. All thanks in the world go to Sarah, for the hand-holding, tandem deep breathing, and most importantly, for a beta that went above and beyond the call of duty.

_"Tell me where dwell the thoughts, forgotten till thou call them forth  
Tell me where dwell the joys of old, and where the ancients love  
And when will they renew again the nights of oblivion past?  
That I might traverse times and spaces far remote  
To bring comforts to a present sorrow"_  
\- William Blake, "Visions of the Daughters of Albion"

~*~*~*~

Iris Crowe was running again.

It would not have surprised anyone that had known her, as she`d spent a lifetime running from powerful men and women who meant harm to her family. Unfortunately, those people seemed to be in short supply these days - Norman caught in the crossfire of a battle she'd shaped, Justin dead in that cornfield (and God only knew what the dying of the crops on that morning had meant), and Eleanor, one of the many sacrifices to her brother's safety. Where her young niece had gotten to was anyone's guess, and the whereabouts of one Varlyn Stroud were, again, unknown. What was more, she didn't particularly care about the latter two.

Because she'd gambled everything on Justin overcoming that boy and his pet freaks, and she'd lost spectacularly, as befit a novice gambler. New Canaan was in chaos; migrants and politicians both at a loss to explain what had occurred that night, let alone set it to rights. Only Justin could have hoped to placate everyone, and despite her prodigious ability to "take care of things", as it were, there was still one large problem.

She was no Justin.

Iris didn't have any special ability to cloud men's minds - just the traditional feminine wiles - and she most certainly couldn't threaten or intimidate as well as her brother. It barely took Justin running off that night and leaving her with the explanations regarding the "faulty Ferris Wheel and heart troubles" for her to figure that much out.

So she ran. Call it self-preservation. Call it paranoia. All she knew was that she was in danger - the last remaining Vectorus in existence, the last descendant of Lucius Belyakov. And who knew when Ben Hawkins would return to finish her off?

Justin would have called her foolish, being frightened by a mere boy, but she'd always been the more observant of them. All it had taken was one look into the boy's eyes and Iris had seen the power lying dormant in the slight frame. He knew exactly who she was, and could have killed her in seconds. If he ever got a mind to eliminate her, she wanted to be somewhere he wouldn't know to look for her, which meant leaving her home once again.

California was a dangerous place for her now, and she had no other contacts anywhere but St. Paul. Iris couldn't have been paid enough to set foot in Minnesota again, and so began to turn her eyes toward her homeland. Her official papers, given to her by Mother all those years ago, were still good, and sailing out of Oakland instead of Santa Clara ensured relative anonymity. Her Russian was shaky, but enough to get her through customs in Anadyr, under the pretense of returning to Rostov for a deathly sick "uncle".

The long train ride through Siberia, however, was another challenge. Iris had expected significant uneasiness on her part, considering she hadn't been on a train since that night on the John F. Chellis Bridge. What she hadn't expected was the debilitating fear every time the train approached a body of water. She found herself short of breath, and her white-knuckled hands clutched the armrest like Alexei's had gripped her hand that night.

But she had done it. Thousands of miles across Russian countryside that she'd forgotten since childhood, speaking in a tongue she rarely used - except to chastise, and Lord, she even missed hearing Justin's taunts. The train had pulled into Rostov, and it had been simple enough to find their old house. Not many people lived in Rostov who didn't know the name Belyakov.

The other townfolk were curious, but readily accepted her story (mother and brother died in the train crash that took her to America, raised by a minister and his wife, traveling back home to try to find her father), and began relating tales of Lucius Belyakov that she might never have believed were true if she hadn't been confronted with the facts.

Her father wasn't a monster at all.

After they'd escaped, he'd never remarried. Signed on as a soldier in the Great War and distinguished himself honorably. Terribly wounded in combat, but no one had ever seen him to know the extent of his injuries. He'd made money on some financial endeavor in America, and sent it back to the village - to keep up his family home and repair the homes of others. His lawyers had been given instructions to use his home as a hospital, and so Iris had taken up residence there.

She'd used what little medical knowledge she possessed (because those teeth and claw marks on the maids hadn't healed themselves) and patience gleaned from years of coaxing her brother through those nightmares to assist the doctors in return for her residency. After all, care was certainly something she knew enough about - Justin's care had been her entire life. She had an impeccable bedside manner and an ideal confidential nature, and so the doctors welcomed her presence.

And then one day, she met him. The second man to re-shape her life.

~*~*~*~

Doctor Sergeyev had requested Irina - she'd still, after three months, not gotten used to hearing her given name - come straight to the young women's ward as soon as she arrived. Three young girls had been brought in with severe cuts and bruising on their bodies with no explanation as to how or why they`d been harmed. Doctor Sergeyev couldn't diagnose them until he learned what was wrong, and needed a woman's touch with the girls. She'd spent nearly two hours trying to pry information out of them, finally deducing that their families had been captured under suspicion of sabotage. The youngest kept sobbing that she'd never known any Germans, and all Iris could do was stroke the girl's hair and surreptitiously ease the morphine needle into her arm.

As she'd dropped into sleep, the girl, Polina, had clutched at Iris' sleeve, whispering in her ear.

"We're always running - we keep running from what we are but we never get anywhere. All of us . . . running from something."

Tucking the girl's arm underneath the thick blanket, she gathered up the various bandages she'd changed and the basket of apples she'd used to coax the other two into eating. She had just slid the door closed and reported to Doctor Sergeyev when she walked straight into him, scattering fruit and linen everywhere.

He was massive, which was not usually a shock when one had grown up with a six-foot-three "little" brother, his presence just enveloping everything around him. This man had none of the features of her brother, other than his ghostly pale skin. His long red hair was tied neatly back - and really, who wore their hair that long anymore? - and amused hazel eyes peered warmly down at her from his lofty height. He wore nothing that would have hallmarked him as one of the many doctors, nor was his clothing rough and patched as the townsfolk: just a simple green shirt, buttoned to mid-chest, and faded work trousers the color of sand tucked into sturdy brown boots. He bent down, helping to pile everything back into her basket, finally plucking a wayward apple from behind the legs of a table.

Offering it to her with a disarmingly bright smile, he said, "Shouldn't this be the other way around?"

"What?"

"I mean, aren't you supposed to be offering me the forbidden fruit? Isn't that how the story goes?"

It had been so long - a year, since Tommy had sweet-talked his way into her home and nearly her heart - since anyone had teased or flirted with her, Iris' jaw nearly dropped. If his Russian hadn't been perfect, she would have assumed her own ears lied.

"You don't sound as if you're very familiar with Scripture, Mister . . .?"

He laughed, a sharp, hearty bark of a sound that seemed entirely out of place with his large frame. "I don't suppose I am, Miss . . .?"

Ah, so that's how he wanted to play it. Fine, she could do one-upsmanship. She'd learned from the best.

Placing the basket safely on the table, she extended her hand. "Belyakov. Irina Belyakov."

"I am in esteemed company indeed, Miss Belyakov. Your father was a good man, even after the war. I must say, I'm as shocked as anyone that you not only survived that crash, but returned after so long."

Lord, yet another villager wanting to expound upon the virtues of her late father. She should have known. Most of them fell all over themselves trying to curry favor with Irina Luciovna, not realizing that it was quite possibly the worst way in which to deal with her.

And so, as always, she fell back on what she'd always known: _strike back, Ira, never let them see you falter._

"It was not an easy decision to make, nor is it easy for me now. If you'll excuse me, sir, I must deliver these linens to the washroom. They'll need to be scrubbed and bleached before they can be reused. Keep the apples, if you like. Perhaps they will prompt you to open a Bible once in a while."

He blinked down at her, resting a hand on her arm lightly. "I'm sorry, did I say something wrong? I wasn't aware Rostov held such bad memories for you."

"Nor should you have been. The fact remains that I do not wish to discuss it further, and I have duties to attend to. Goodnight."

Despite turning two corners and walking down four flights of stairs, she could feel his eyes on her the rest of the way to the laundry room.

~*~*~*~

It took a train crash to bring them together the second time.

Iris was panicking. The bright red of new blood, the dull rust of blood already dried, and always the screaming - all she could remember was that night. Mama praying, even as the iron beam pierced her heart (and God strike her dead, but Iris had never known if her mother had even felt it through the madness), Alexei a shaking wreck in her arms (_don't leave me, Ira, please don't leave me like Mama, why did she have to leave us?_), and her own lungs forcing breath in and out of her when all she wanted was for it to stop.

But her brother had needed her, and she had never, could never, deny him.

With the help of a young girl, only a few years older than Irina herself, they'd braved the smoke and fire and forced a window open. So high, and she'd always been deathly afraid of heights, but better to die in ice than fire, and they'd jumped just before the entire train went up. And God only knew why, but they'd survived. Lived through the fire and the air and the water to finally come back to the earth and a man of God.

The hospital was in chaos, victims of the crash being wheeled and carried in. She knew she should have been doing her part to help - cutting strips of cloth and rope for tourniquets, holding down the ones who screamed and tried to escape, preparing doses of morphine for those who were in the most danger - but she couldn't move. Her legs seemed to be made of stone (not iron, for iron was worth more than stone and could be broken as easily as clay), anchoring her to the doorway in which she stood.

She'd been awakened by the alarms signaling an overload of patients, and had hastily thrown on dressing gown, slippers, and tied her hair back with a spare ribbon. It had gotten long enough to drape over her shoulders uncurled. But she'd reached the foot of the stairs, and the memories and panic had set in.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him - the stranger from a few nights ago. He was in the thick of things, weaving in and out of the nurses and doctors with eerie precision. Shrapnel seemed to dislodge itself with the slightest touch from his hands, while nurses struggled with wounds exactly like it not two feet away.

"Irina! He's going into shock! I need a dose of morphine!"

It was one of her fellow nurses, Katia, elbow deep in a chest wound. The thought flashed across her mind before she could stop it (did Norman look like that as Justin carved him open?), but vanished as Katia again called for her. Iris forced her legs to unlock, dashing through the doors to the main lobby. She skidded to a stop beside the stretcher, already retrieving a bottle of morphine from a doctor on the way. She reached blindly for a case of needles, taking one out and testing its sharpness on one needle-calloused finger, for one more cut (whether it be from needle or glass) certainly wouldn't hurt her. She filled the syringe as quickly as she could, trying to block out the man's frenzied screams. The patient thrashed back and forth, and Iris cursed under her breath as she tried to hold a limb still long enough to slip the needle in.

"Katia, hold him! I can't dose him if I don't have a clear shot at some skin!"

"It's alright, I have him," came the rumble from above them. Both Iris and Katia turned to see the redheaded stranger calmly holding the patient's upper body completely immobile while his feet continued jittering and thrashing.

Iris breathed out a thank you, and slid the needle into the man's upper arm. Almost immediately, he began to relax, and the stranger eased off his grip. She methodically began removing bandages, looking over at the stranger in surprise when he rounded the stretcher and took over for Katia, soaking clean cloths in boiled water and using them to clean off the man's chest. Now that they had a look at the wound, Iris sucked in a shaky breath: skin cut raggedly by iron straight down to the bone, exposing ribs and internal organs. He'd be lucky to survive the night.

As if he'd heard her thoughts, the stranger shook his head. "He's got less time than that. Look at the iron fragments - they're buried so deep, no surgeon could remove them."

No, she was not going to stand idly by this time. Not when she could do something. "No, there has to be a way to save him!"

Iris snatched the cloth from his hand, ignoring the near-scalding water dripping from it, and continued cleaning the man, scrubbing off blood, dirt, and grime to reveal a startlingly young face underneath. Lord, no - he was barely out of his twenties. He had an entire life ahead of him. She couldn't allow him to just die.

The man's breathing got heavier, shuddering in a telltale rhythm that Iris knew signaled the beginning of his end. She started to reach for another dose of morphine - if his heart rate slowed, he could devote more energy to healing - but a warm hand closed around her arm.

"It's his time, Irina. Look at how much he's suffering."

"I can't-"

"Yes," he said firmly, "you can. Give someone a peaceful death this time."

Her stomach dropped, and she swung angry eyes up at him. "How dare you accuse me of murder? I don't even know you!"

His eyes burned into hers, as if they'd sprung to life in the planes of his face, the high cheekbones and sweep of hair over brow. As she stared into those eyes, a spark of recognition flared in her, echoed by his voice, speaking not in Russian, but equally precise English.

"But you do. You may not have ever met me in person, but I can sense it on you. You've known me for a long time. You've sensed me in the spark of a match, in those seven distinctive screams you so vainly tried to block out, and you've sensed me in the smooth feel of the wood under your palms and the power of a good overhead swing. Oh, yes, my rainbow lass, you know me quite well."

Her head spun. How had he known - six orphans, exactly the age and number of her brother when they'd been abandoned themselves; their matron, selflessly caring for them as Irina and Alexei's own mother could not; and a foolish old crone, who did not, and never would, learn to keep her mouth shut and a civil tongue in her head - however had he known? And her name, Iris for rainbow, for the one bedtime story Alexei remembered their mother telling - how could he have known that?

She drew a shaky breath, still staring into those amber eyes of his . . . until a new voice interrupted.

"Well, my brother, it has been a long time, hasn't it?"

~*~*~*~

It was her, the girl from the train, not aged a day. She stood by the wounded man - now stilled, limbs free from the pain that had wracked them - wearing a black sarafan and blouse, army boots peeking out from the skirt of the dress. A small smile crossed her face, which was marked with a strange tattoo under her right eye that intermittently faded in and out of existence. Iris didn't want to know its significance; she'd had quite enough of tattoos for one lifetime.

A flash of near-pain crossed the face of the man next to her, and he turned to face the girl. "Indeed it has. Hello, elder sister."

Even though he quite obviously appeared a good twenty years the girl's senior, Iris didn't say a word. She didn't think she was capable of it, and she couldn`t have sworn that anything that came out of her mouth right now would have been intelligible.

"So formal," the girl teased. "I heard you with our Miss Iris earlier. You really have grown up."

"My leaving didn't tell you that? I would have thought you, of all our brethren, had taken me seriously."

"And you were right. Unlike Del or Dream, I never had any illusions about why you left."

The man sighed, shaking his head, frustrated voice recalling the tone her own brother used when he was trying to explain something to her for the tenth time. "And why, in your opinion, did I leave?"

"Because you actually listened to something I told you long ago: that there is no such thing as a one-sided coin. Because you needed to find that in yourself, and believe me, brother, you have done admirably. Not 400 years ago, you would have been here tonight only to view the fallout of your handiwork, not trying to undo it."

The girl's statement resonated in Iris, and she remembered. The girl was not a girl, was countless years old, was not even human.

"Death," Iris breathed. "I know you. I've always known you."

The soft smile again. "Yes, you have, Irina. Iris. Whatever name you've christened as yours today. You know, for such a simple woman, you do seem to rack up the names. Not as many as your brother, but you're getting there."

With the mention of her brother, the expected wave of grief crashed over her, and Iris backed up into the wall behind her, sliding to crouch on the floor. She felt her hands shaking - just like that sunny California afternoon when Justin, Alexei, her baby brother, had first needed to ask her for something - and all she could hear was his voice.

_Go ahead, Justin, ask me._

_I can't._

_Ask me._

_Don't make me do this._

_If I`m to sacrifice myself again for you, the least you can do is ask me, for once._

_Ira, please . . ._

And she'd had to, because he'd pleaded with her, and he'd never needed to ask, never needed to do that before. And then had come penance and substitution and still she'd not been able to manipulate her way into his forgiveness. So she'd done the next best thing, and paid her thirty pieces of silver to that carnival.

She never had gotten her Judas kiss, though.

The haze broke with the warm, now-familiar touch of the stranger's hand on her shoulder, and the girl's voice as she knelt in front of Iris.

"He's not mine, you know."

"What?"

"Your brother. Despite all the people he's been sending my way, I haven't come for him yet."

Death - the girl - continued speaking, unaware, or perhaps uncaring, that Iris` jaw had dropped to the floor. "I'm slightly put out by that fact, I`ll have you know. Usually I'm the first and last thing you humans see, and suddenly some long-dormant magic awakens and boom - my job just got a whole lot harder."

Iris' eyes snapped clear, and focused on the pale figure in front of her. "What are you talking about?"

A long-suffering sigh from the girl, which stopped at a glare from the stranger.

"She said your brother isn't dead, Irina."

"Nor is he technically alive," the girl added, twirling her pendant idly. "I don't know how much that helps."

Before Iris could respond, the man rolled his eyes humorlessly.

"My guess is not much. I don't suppose you can tell her anything else?"

"Do you see me wearing a heavy grey cloak? Yammering about what is written, what is, and what will be? Did I change my name to Destiny when I wasn't looking?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued, turning her gaze back to Iris. "Then no, I cannot tell her anything else. Except that you should keep a close eye on that niece of yours. Both, if you can spare them. She's going to be no end of trouble."

Advice Irina planned to take, if she ever cared to return to New Canaan.

The girl suddenly leaped up off the floor, skirt swishing around her. "It's been good to see you, little brother, but unfortunately, some of us didn't give up on our duties."

He looked slightly irked at her comment, but nodded. He got to his feet, catching her by the hand. "Answer me one question, my sister, if you would."

"All right."

"When I left, I said I was leaving for good. That none of you would ever see me again. Destiny said that wasn't true, but wouldn't elaborate."

She nodded. "I remember."

"Is this it? Is this the last time I'll see one of my family?"

If she hadn't been so dazed by the revelations about her brother, Iris would have smiled at the long-suffering look the girl shot heavenward.

"Haven't we been through this? Do you see a big heavy book chained to my wrist?"

"No."

"Then all I can tell you is that there are paths outside Destiny`s garden, and if you truly wish to abandon us, you should remember that." She got up on tiptoe to place a kiss on the man's cheek. "But I do hope you also remember that we all still miss you."

He laughed. "Even Dream?"

Death laughed, a half-giggle, half-bray that was completely out of place with her appearance. That, Iris thought, was probably the point. She began to vanish, little by little, and by the time she replied, all Iris could see was a faint outline of her form and the symbol around her neck.

"More than he likes to admit. Be seeing you, little brother."

~*~*~*~

Iris didn't remember getting from the downstairs corridor to her room - he must have carried her up the stairs and down the hallways - nor did she remember him sitting her down in an armchair and tucking a blanket around her. All she can remember is the voice of that girl (_Death_, her brain supplies, _call her by her name_) telling her Alexei was alive. She should go to him, should make the long journey back to New Canaan, because her brother had made an even longer journey back to her.

Except a small part of her didn't want to leave Rostov. Not again. Not when she'd found a calling of her own, instead of cast-off portions of her brother's mission. An occupation that required more of her than playing the dutiful sister/mother/wife - for she was, and had always been all three - and cleaning up the messes that Justin need never know he'd caused.

Yes, it was selfish of her, but God, hadn't she earned a little selfishness?

"Does he need you?"

Iris blinked, focused on the man seated in a chair opposite her. The man she'd known all her life, and yet never set eyes upon before returning to Rostov. "Does who need me?"

"Your brother, of course. The one with all the names, according to my elder sister."

His tone was light, slightly teasing, but there was nothing but scalpel-sharp seriousness in his eyes.

She immediately began to respond - _of course he needs me, I'm his sister, he's always needed me_ \- but thought better of it. Week after week of services in which he preached a gospel of his own making, not scripture he'd first learned from her. Day after day of setting his plans in motion, and never once had he come to her and asked for her assistance. Hour after hour of silence in that grand new home, when there had always been laughter and love in their tiny old one. A trinity of maids that she'd found and he'd lost, and a fourth that she hoped he'd never find.

"I don't know," she finally answered, the words sticking in her throat and leaving her desperate to stuff them back in. Things left unsaid could never come back to hurt you.

"What I do know is that people who tend to acquire names only do so in an attempt to define who they are when they themselves do not know. So the question is, who is he, this brother of yours?"

Lord, where to start? He was Alexei Belyakov, the boy child who clung to her hand in an icy river, and the man who still called out for her when he had nightmares. He was Justin Crowe, beloved religious leader, man of a people who would have shot his ancestors on sight. He was Brother Justin, dark savior and messiah of seventeen thousand migrants like himself, and had culled his flock without a single thought to cover up his battle with Ben Hawkins. He was the Usher - a title she'd only heard in awed whispers and hushed growls - his eyes darker than that tree etched across his chest. He was one of the Avatara, heir to a throne that would (and had) stripped the humanity from him, the last remnant being his love for her and Norman, and if what he had done to Norman was out of love, she wasn`t sure how he might have dealt with her.

He was all of those things, and more, and she found she didn't need to say any of them, because somehow, the stranger had known that already, which didn`t stop her from answering his question. "I suppose he is many things, sir."

"Sir? Don`t you think this is getting slightly ridiculous?," he said softly. "Call me Kazimir, and if you know anything about name meanings, you'll know that's as close as I'll get to speaking my old title aloud."

"Kazimir, then." Very apropos, and she did know her etymology, after years of Rose's tutelage. It had been one of her foster mother's rare interests. "My brother - well, he is my brother. I don't know if you are as familiar with him as your sister seems to be, but despite all of his darkness, all of his cruelty, he is still my brother."

He leaned back in his chair, tracing the grooves in its arms with long, sturdy fingers. "And what of you, Irina? Are you content to be his right hand again? To hide your doings from the Left Hand under the veil of protectiveness? To take life once again?"

For the first time that night, Iris smiled. Kazimir raised an eyebrow, and she remarked innocently: "And here you said you weren't familiar with Scripture."

"What can I say, Irina? Forbidden fruit is a temptation, even to me."

Under his suddenly heated gaze, Iris refused to yield, and she could have sworn the air had been charged with a metallic scent, like lightning. His mouth slid into a rather wolfish smile - the better to eat you with, my dear - and yet she did not run.

She was Vectorus, and the vectori bowed to no one. Not even destruction itself.

~*~*~*~

In the blink of an eye, they were both standing. Iris's bare feet, toes curling on the wooden floorboards to leech any remaining warmth of the fire, and Kazimir's boots planted firmly across from her. He hesitated, only a fraction of a second, but enough for Iris to have noticed.

"Did you happen to get any further in your biblical studies? Adam and Eve were thrown out of paradise for succumbing to temptation," she said.

He reached out, capturing her wrist (and nearly half her arm as well) in one of his massive hands. His touch was delicate, thumb stroking along the paper-thin skin at her wrist, tracing the path of her veins (blue on the outside, but not on the inside, not like her brother's anymore).

"It wasn't Eve who made Adam eat the apple, you know," he said absently, "No, he got into trouble all by his lonesome. Eve didn't need a snake to tell her the secrets of the garden - because no one but Destiny knows them - and she was never meant to be simply a helpmate to Adam. She was created with all of the wisdom in the universe for the sole purpose of protecting him. More often than not, it was from himself."

"Blasphemy," she breathed, beginning to yank her arm away.

He just tightened his grip.

"You know it's not, lass. You know all those preachers spoutin' off at the mouth about woman bringing original sin and woman being the downfall of man and woman being the subordinates of men doesn't add up. I mean, I think I'd have noticed if women were somehow marked as the destroyers of men."

How _dare_ he mar the truth of God? How dare he lecture her on sin and abandonment, she who had spent so many years repenting for both?

"I dare because I was there," he rumbled, tugging her to him. Iris shivered as his eyes stared into hers from mere inches away, and his body molded itself to hers. "I dare because I watched as my sister breathed life into the first human beings. I dare because I witnessed the first taking of life by Cain to his brother Abel, and walked the banks of the Nile as the river turned to blood. I have seen and done things you've never conceived, my rainbow lass, with your shaking hands and matchbook, or that so-convenient boat oar."

She didn't scream, or push ineffectually at his chest or shoulders to get away. This man was nothing like the beady eyes and arrogant perversity of Varlyn Stroud, and would not be impressed with a woman fighting back. Could never have resembled the easy charm and innate goodness of Tommy Dolan, and had most likely seen every feminine wile under the sun.

Unfortunately, it seemed her taste in men was again being measured against the impossibly high ideal of her brother - and for better or worse, Kazimir did resemble Alexei in many ways. Most unfortunately, she could not stall him with big-sister-knows-best, or hold any influence at all over him.

No matter. If there was one thing Iris Crowe enjoyed, it was a challenge.

Sliding one hand up into his hair, she sunk her fingers into the smooth strands just before they met the ribbon he'd used to tie it back, and firmly pulled him down to her level. A spark of amusement lit in his eyes, and he allowed her to bend him sideways until he knelt in front of her.

"And in all those lifetimes, Kazimir, over those many years of bloodshed and ruin - did you ever stop to think that maybe there is more to these lives of ours? That not only humans, but beings such as you, have purposes not immediately conceivable to us?"

He chuckled quietly, staring up at her from those endless eyes of his. "You've just lit upon it. The thing that my sister told me when this universe begun, and took me millions of years to work out; that there is no such thing as a one-sided coin. Well done, lass."

Iris shook her head. "To be fair, I've had a lot of practice at believing things without seeing. I don't suppose there's much you haven't seen."

"You have no idea," he said. "But, if you like, I could show you one or two of them."

~*~*~*~

She did not go to bed with him, nor did she precisely fuck him, either.

It was - something without words . A melding, perhaps; a fusion of everything that she was joining to a part of him she couldn't define. It was achingly beautiful, and he'd certainly kept his promise to show her one or two of those things she'd believed without seeing.

A lady doesn't kiss and tell, after all.

After, she laid in the curve of his arm, listening to him tell stories of his travels over the centuries. He'd certainly gotten around - building the Panama Canal half-drunk, playing the violin in the Rue Rivoli in Paris, dropping a few hints about astronomy and gold to a young Isaac Newton, and inventing the souffle because he'd turned the oven up too high and substituted a few ingredients on a chocolate cake - and the way he told stories, she could practically hear the violin and smell the chocolate.

She could have fallen in love with him quite easily. When one has become so used to scraps, it makes a gourmet dinner even more appetizing. She could have lived out a beautiful life in Rostov with him, working at the hospital, trying out his cooking (which her pride insisted she could teach him a few things about), and spent each day learning what life was like for one who would never die. And it would have driven her even more mad than she already was.

Because when she was little more than a memory, he would remain unchanged. He would live however long forever was supposed to be, and she would join her brother in hell - and Kazimir had never disputed the existence or purpose of that place. No, Iris could not, would not, taint such a man with the stain of her sins. She had done enough already.

" . . . now, the man's laughing his head off at me, wondering what on earth I'm doing standing there with a chicken in one hand and my pants in the other - and you're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"

She felt a rush of heat to her face, reddening in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I was, I really was. But I just started thinking."

"Dare I ask, Irina, or shall we leave sleeping dogs lie for now?"

Lord, she wished she could answer in the latter, and curl into him to sleep. He was pure heat - eyes radiating warmth, the flicker of desire's flame each time her body moved against his, erupting into an inferno as they made love. All she had to do was leave well enough alone.

Things left unsaid couldn't hurt you - but she'd had far too much silence from people she loved.

"I can't stay. Not if there's a chance my brother is alive and waiting for me."

Kazimir sighed, turning her slightly in his arms to look her in the eye. "So you've finally answered my earlier question. You're ready to give it all up, this new life of yours, to return to your old ways?"

"He is my brother," she said simply. "I must do what he cannot, what even his own nature will never allow him to do."

He nodded, then slowly withdrew from her embrace, getting to his feet far more gracefully than she could have achieved in his position. She watched as he dressed - pants, boots, and a double layer of warm shirts, lacing everything with fingers she knew to be exactly as deft as they appeared. He turned to her, raking his now-free hair out of his face.

"Truth be told, I'd hoped better for you, my rainbow lass. A woman for the ages - and one for the here and now. I could have truly loved you, Irina."

She smiled, dipping her head at the compliment. "To have escaped you only mildly scathed? I count my blessings, my lord of Destruction."

"Many thanks for the courtesy of my title. It has been a long time since anyone called me by that name."

He would have gone then, had she not asked him one final question that had suddenly come into her head.

"Kazimir? What`s the word for when you start to say things aloud that you'd only ever thought about saying before?"

An odd, faraway look on his face. "Do you really wish to know the answer?"

"Yes," Iris said, gathering the sheet to her, and sitting upright.

He reached into the basket - left on the edge of the table, and knocked over by their overzealous lovemaking - and pulled out the last of the apples from amid the other fruits. He tossed it to her, underhand, and it bounced to a stop by her right hip.

"The answer is twofold," he said. "It is courage . . . and it is change. And it's coming sooner than you think."


End file.
